Gregory Ain, a midcentury champion of modern architecture whose students included Frank Gehry, is virtually unknown outside Los Angeles today. His left-leaning politics made him the object of decades-long F.B.I. surveillance [...]
Even the fate of his most important commission — an exhibition house in the garden of the Museum of Modern Art — is a mystery. That house is now the subject of “This Future Has a Past,” an installation at the Center for Architecture in Greenwich Village.
— The New York Times
This Future Has a Past opened in July at the Center for Architecture in New York and still runs through September 12. The accompanying event Who Was Gregory Ain? on September 7 will feature the installation's producers, Katherine Lambert and Christiane Robbins, as well as other speakers.
6 Comments
Ain was really an fascinating and important figure here in LA. He was a stunningly good architect, and his social theories were....interesting. :)
The Dunsmuir Flats are just brilliant. Whenever I am in the neighborhood, I always make a point to drive by. They are still there, substantially unaltered. I'd put it as one of the top five early International Style modernist designs in LA, and that's really saying a lot, given the prodigious output by Neutra, Schindler, Harris, etc.
totally agree. Also worth checking out is the Schindler/MAK residence building on Cochran, right up the street.
The Dunsmuir Flats, I confess, give me an erection.
That front view is fantastic, yes, but if you examine the plan and section, you'll be aroused, too.
oa 2004
While Dunsmir is no doubt one of the more impressive multi-unit residential buildings in LA .... Ain's other projects in LA such as Community Homes, Avenel, Park Planned Homes and Mar Vista were more aligned with the sensibilities of the missing exhibition house....not to mention his "interesting social theories," ( as per earlier post .)
And, of course, don't forget that this exhibition was produced by AnySpace as their first POP-UP exhibition and curated by Cynthia Davidson ( LOG + co-curator of the American Pavillion at the 2016 Venice Biennale) !
Gregory Ain was black listed by the perpetrators of chronic communist scare in American politics and society. This included bogus investigations, bullying and threats. Many of his clients were also under investigation and this greatly put a negative impact on his work. In my unpublished interview with Julius Shulman, he was referred as never having "rich clients" by the photographer who also mentioned that "we were all communists" at the time, meaning the architects who left a brilliant spot on world architecture via Los Angeles. It is not unusual to find hidden drawers and such in Ain's houses designed to hide documents from zealous FBI agents and the police who periodically raided the houses.
Contrary to common belief that he is an unknown, he was recognized in the architectural community and greatly respected among his peers. Good example of this was his inclusion in the MoMA's 1950 "The Museum of Modern Art-Woman's home companion exhibition house" installation in New York.
I am luck enough to know some of his best houses closely as some of my friends live in them and a school friend, Unruh-Boyer, operates out of Ain's old office.
Here's something else, there is no material in Ain's houses that you can not buy at Home Depot today except his exceptional design talent.
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